Wonderful Dance Performances At Hyderabad

As I am beginning to explore the cultural and non-IT face of Hyderabad, I came across two cultural programs that were real gems performed at the Ravindra Bharathi .

One was a Dance Ballet (Nrutya Rupakam) on the life of Bhakta Ramadas, a revered 17th century poet-saint. This was performed by Ananda Shankar Jayant (pictured), who drew upon many of Ramadas's immensely popular and moving compositions (kritis) in Telugu. Titled "Sree Rama Nee Namam Emi Ruchira" the ballet was based on the Bharata Natyam style of dance. One of the most impressive pieces was "Takkuvemi Manaku" in which all the ten avatars of Vishnu are alluded to.

The second was an amalgam of the three South Indian dance forms: Mohini Attam (slow tempo), Bharata Natyam (slow/medium) and Kuchipudi (medium/fast), based on the theme of Shanmatham propounded by Adi Shankaracharya worshipping the six divine forms of Ganesha, Karthikeya, Shiva, Ambika, Vishnu and Surya. The exponents were Gopika Nair for Mohini Attam, Revathi Ramachandran for Bharta Natyam and Deepika Reddy (pictured here) for Kuchipudi. Each is an amazing danseuse in her own right - erudite, widely travelled and perfectionist. When they came togther as they did for three of the six dances, it was an amazing scene. The Ganesha Pancharatnam was the most impressive piece, based on Adi Shankaracharya's composition. The last piece, a Thillana worshipping the Sun God, was also a magnificent confluence of South Indian dance.

Both were part of the ten-day long 47th Annual Festival organised by the South Indian Cultural Association (I got to see only these two). Unlike most programmes at Ravindra Bharathi these were paid programs, but the price was well worth it. It was interesting to see some young people in the audience too (though the majority were gray haired).

Waiting for Orange Juice (Not From Concentrate) On Indian Retail Shelves

Ever since my R2I (Return to India for good, if you haven't heard this term before) last year, one thing I have missed is the sweet-tangy taste of Orange Juice. It was a staple drink in those years spent in the United States. The ad of Florida's Natural OJ which showed consumers literally pulling the juice cans straight from the groves was a big hit. In the Indian context though such a pull is not easy, with the severe lack of cold storage chains connecting the farms to the marts. You will find many variants of the 'from-concentrate' OJ which do not need any refrigeration, but those I avoid. Instead I have resorted to eating orange fruits whenever I find them, but then they are seasonal.

A good development of late in India has been the opening up of retail in a big way. Reliance, Bharti-Walmart, RPG, Birlas, Tatas, you name it every big corporate house is venturing bigtime. ET reports Retail will jump from $12B today to $200B by year 2016! In most developed nations, organised retail is the economy's backbone emlpoying more people than any other industry. This is about to pickup in India with these companies making $30B worth of investments in linking the farm to the mart, triggering a new socio-economic revolution.

And now the government has just announced incentives to companies in setting up cold chains with reduced import duties, interest-sops etc. That should reduce my wait for OJ (not from concentrate) considerably!

SaaS And The Future of Bloated Enterprise IT

How many times have Businesses complained that they are not getting the worth for Technology spend? IT departments have bloated in size over the decades and with the ensuing bureaucracy and entropy, have often failed in providing nimble and economical solutions to the business. Nicholas Carr famously said on this: "Does IT matter?" implying it doesn't. Jeff Nolan now CEO of Teqlo and previously with SAP, also writes..

IT is no longer going to be the sole provider of these within the enterprise. In fact, my bet is that IT becomes a utility provider responsible for infrastructure services while business units take responsibility for business solutions. In this scenario SAP and Oracle are ill-equipped to win on their terms because for their entire history they have been solving CIO and IT problems, not user problems. "

Now Software as a Service (SaaS) is one disruptive trend that promises to offer Business Applications to end users without the hand holding of an IT department. So for a business user the vision is: 'I need an app, I go buy it off the Net from someone who hosts it and takes care of all the IT stuff (security, privacy, disaster recovery etc). Basically, I get the app on the tap.'

The handicap that Jeff articulated about SAP/Oracle is bound to impact the Indian services players too unless they evolve rather dramatically. So far they also have been solving CIO and IT problems, and attempts to connect to the business have not been very successful. To cite two reasons: IT feels threatened when they talk to the business, and Indian service players do not yet have the sales/engagement skills to talk to the business about their problems, leave alone solving them.

Now, Indian companies moves into SaaS have so far been revolving around either building the IP themselves (organic) or acquiring niche companies (inorganic). Basab Pradhan, a veteran IT Services Sales guy, in this latest post avers that it will be more of the latter.

But it is much more than just the product or IP involved, the desi companies will have to integrate different sales and product managment culutures into the services setup, compensate the product thinkers differently, allow for a different gross/operating margin play, invest in product lines much more aggressively etc. Ultimately the first S in 'SaaS' matters much more than the second which is increasingly a commodity.

Premature (And Sometimes Immature) Talk of Superpower Status

Some may find this article in Fortune's latest issue deriding India's superpower aspirations derisory (such as this reaction). Agreed the tone is unfortunately very snobbish but then the points it makes are also equally valid.

Though I am great India fan, the talk of super power status is just way too premature. Indian politicans find it a favourite past time, gloating on recent rapid growth. In a recent corporate fire drill, the coordinator was using a loud speaker and pepping up a crowd of few thousand IT employees by asking them if they see India's super power status coming. I found it amusing.

Until some fundamental goals are met: such as per capita income of $2500 (Atlas method) by 2015, or 80% literacy, reducing drop out rate before high school to 50% (from the current 94%), or a unified and simplified tax system, are achieved such talk should be discouraged. Empty super power talk, especially by Indian ministers and officials in international forums is useless, boastful and just doesn't help. Especially if those ministers in a coalition communist supported government are doing nothing to address core reform issues, such as labour laws.

If a communist China can provide gainful employment to relatively 100 million unskilled people in manufacturing, why is our communist supported government failing to do so? Archaic labour laws, vested interests representing only the formally employed sector (though the non-formal sector employs 10x times that figure), agriculatural inefficiencies driving many small farmers to suicides (even while politicians fight to prevent manufacturing projects like the Tata small car, though it will generate more employment for these un-viable farmers) : ALL THESE SHOULD GO.

This topic about should we rejoice in the recent bout of growth and the fundamental shift in trend growth rate is being widely debated. But isn't that debate, besides the point? Aren't we getting ahead of ourselves? Shouldn't we instead set goals on various socio-economic parameters? Goals that put the government under pressure to initiate more structural reforms rather than self-congratulate. Pressure to initiate reforms need not be external like the last time in 1991 when there was a serious Balance of Payment crisis. While some celebration is justifiable, we cannot go overboard until our 'goals are met'.

Grid Computing Funda For Education?

Of late, there is a lot getting published on the sad state of Primary Education in India, how neglected it is, yet how it holds the key to India's future growth etc. The Economist argues in its latest lead/cover article that unless major supply side constraints like Primary Education are not solved, increasing demand in the fast growing Indian economy will lead to overheating and even a meltdown.

However what has now set me thinking impromptu is this post by Shekhar Kapur on primary education. How about starting a network that taps the computer that exists in each of our brains. Kind of like the fancied grid-computing concept in computer technology? A grid of people, who will visit villages or slums to teach for half a day on weekends and holidays.

So what do we need to get this going?

• A team of half a dozen dedicated folks interested in teaching part-time.
  
• Algorithms to form virtual classes attaching teachers to specific villages and classes. Meet 'supply' of teachers (time slices) with 'demand' from the needy children leveraging technology.
  
• Course material (follow the 'prescribed syllabus of the regular school' or enhance it) or leverage some of the e-Learning material CDs that are developed
• Ideas on deploying technology (some old computers, some CDs with good material). One could later on leverage satellite communications to download study material real time or have some 'remote classes' during evenings of weekdays.

The IT industry is 1 million strong and using some 'Chinese Math', 1% of this million will mean 10,000 teachers. Even 1% of this 1% ~ about 100 teachers and will take this idea well past its critical mass.

India escape to victory

Rediff has an interesting title to their report on India's win in yesterday's cricket match with the West Indies. - "India escape to victory"

Too often we have heard the Indian cricket team doing a 'snatch defeat from the jaws of victory' - just like they did in the last two Test matches in South Africa and the series in West Indies before that. Given this, it is was heartening to read that headline.

Meanwhile I will continue to resist the temptation of watching India play international cricket to avoid the tension and later, the heart burn. But with the World Cup right around the corner, it will be a tough proposition.

'Two Swipes And A Lunch' - Antiquated, Yet We Persist

Today on the bus to work, I was watching several young 'knowledge workers' stand in the bus for an hour, and thought, "They are all travelling tens of kilometres every day, only to converge in a place called 'office' where most will soon get buried in their own cubicles in desk work or telephone calls. After two swipes and a lunch that mark and measure this work-day, they will once again battle massive evening traffic only to reach home exhausted and frustrated. "

Doesn't this sound insane? After all it is a fully wired world now, with monthly broadband bandwidth costs approaching that of an evening's worth of fine dining. The productivity loss of two hours of a single day's commute itself could easily pay for an entire year's bandwidth and electricity costs required for 'work'.

Before the Industrial Revolution, business was accomplished in close-knit communities that used to work and live together. Industrialization in the last two centuries gave rise to factories which necessitated workers to come to the shop floor to produce goods on a massive scale. Soon by the early 20th century, optimisation techniques thanks to the likes of Alfred Sloan imposed a 'modern workplace' regimen on the shop floor, of work package - time slice monitoring and time punch. Now time punches have 'technologically advanced' to time swipes.

However today with distances having been conquered by waves of tectonic transportation and technology developments (the latest one being the Internet), this model needs to be turned on its head. Unfortunately old attitudes die hard, and this modern-corporate-commute practice owes much of its identity to the century old regime. Corporates like the power they wield over the cubicled masses, and losing it to telecommuting may not be appealing. And how can desi software service firms addicted to hourly wages prove their wage bills are right without timesheets to back them up?

The future will eventually be one where technology gets us back to the olden (golden) times where people specialise in specific skills, the change being we are now globally connected. So one can enjoy a home view in say, Araku Valley and still participate in a sophisticated global supply chain. Technology will also enable people to meet co-workers on-demand and not all-the-time. In fact most co-workers will live around each other, just like the artisan villages of the past. New business models will evolve that will set up such a collaborate-on-demand infrastructure.

Indian firms are still mired in the Industrial Age mind-set and one hears about no new thinking, except may be some startups before they don the corporate avatar. IBM has done relatively well in having 30% staff (all are not just sales guys) working remotely. Best Buy has already started on this journey with its wildly successful Results Only Work Environment (ROWE) initiative. Getting there needs conviction and maturity. Let us hope the rest of the corporate world sees the light.

Linkedin Reaches Critical Mass

Linkedin the online networking site appears to be fast reaching a tipping point. In addition to growing number of users (has about 9 million members now), this Valley-Biggie-VC backed venture is also getting a lot of attention. Guy Kawasaki, wrote a good piece on his blog. I have liked and followed Guy since I read his book the 'Art of the Start' a couple of years ago. His blog reflects his thinking with its elegant design, easy to read fonts, easy-on-the-eye colors, simple layout, meaningful content and of course his witty remarks.

I have registered with Linkedin about an year ago and my network has just reached the magical number of one million people. No I don't know all the million, it just means I am directly connected to 166 people I know (colleagues, clients, classmates, friends etc) who know more people who in turn know even more. So it is a two-level connect. There is this well known saying that every person in this world is connected to another by seven links. Linkedin works on the same principle. At one point I was rapidly adding people to my network but now I am selective (Guy claims to have the largest 'pending invites' list on Linkedin). Like anything else, it is a choice of quality over quantity.